


Wired

by immoral_crow



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Inception Reverse Big Bang Challenge, M/M, Magical Realism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-22
Updated: 2016-11-22
Packaged: 2018-08-29 07:08:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8479882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/immoral_crow/pseuds/immoral_crow
Summary: There was once a time, Arthur supposes, when magic and technology were two different things.  A time when shapshifters and lines of code were separate and distinct and had nothing whatsoever to do with each other. A time when databases and dream walking would not be mentioned in the same breath. Arthur wishes he’d known those days.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Firstly, you should look at the amazing art that inspired this - http://lauand.livejournal.com/127201.html I'm not sure my story does this justice - but I hope it gives some sense of what I see when I look at the picture.
> 
> Secondly, my eternal and painful thanks to Trojie who kept me writing and kept me believing when real life made me think I should give up writing and take up herming instead. Anything that looks like it was beta read and decent is down to her - the rest is mine.

There was once a time, Arthur supposes, when magic and technology were two different things. A time when shapeshifters and lines of code were separate and distinct things that had nothing whatsoever to do with each other. A time when databases and dream walking would not be mentioned in the same breath. 

Arthur wishes he’d known those days. 

Now everything is a mess of confused ends, of logic and instinct, where there are no clear answers, and trying to find certainty in anything just leads to more questions. 

Arthur also wishes he didn’t want answers quite as badly as he does, didn’t have so many questions that nag at his mind and ruin his sleep. 

If wishes were horses, Arthur would never have to walk anywhere again in his life. 

He wishes that he’d never started in this job, wishes he’d never heard of technomancy… wishes that he could manage to sleep through the night, that he could stop seeing the blue thrum of his veins under the too pale covering of his skin. 

He wishes he could see the sun rise without wincing, wishes he had someone he could go home to, wishes there was, in fact, anywhere that he might one day consider home. 

Instead he has a string of anonymous hotel rooms, a series of high pressure jobs for shady clients in shadier locations, relationships that boil down to sex, and sex that boils down to transactions. 

He wishes none of this was true. 

But most of all – more than any of this – Arthur wishes he could work out how to get this fucking job done. 

—

“I need a favour.”

The lines around Cobb’s eyes are pronounced, the skin under them thinner than Arthur remembers, the black bags so pronounced that they look bruised. 

“What?” Arthur swings back in his chair, letting it tip, enjoying the frisson of balance. “Be specific, Cobb.” 

It makes Cobb huff and he swings himself into a chair next to Arthur. 

“You have no smalltalk,” he says. “Anyone ever tell you that?”

“No.” It’s an honest answer in so far as it goes. Of course, it neglects to mention that Arthur really doesn’t have anyone who’s close enough to him to tell him something like that, so… “You still haven’t answered my question.” 

Cobb shakes his head, but at least he looks just ordinarily tired right now, less like the walking dead he’d appeared to be when he’d arrived. 

“Would it hurt you to pretend to be interested?” he asks Arthur, and winces at the derisive snort Arthur lets out. 

“We deal in magic.” Arthur pushes himself away from the desk, lets his blindfold drop into the drawer. Even if Cobb gets to the point and leaves, Arthur’s concentration is shot now. He won’t be able to get back in the zone today. “Imprecise language is dangerous. It invites chaos.” He glares at Cobb. “I shouldn’t need to have to tell _you_ that.” 

Cobb raises an eloquent eyebrow at him, and for a second Arthur is almost ashamed, remembering the time when Cobb knew all the answers, when he’d introduced Arthur to the world of technomancy and technically enhanced consciousness. Almost. 

Those days are long gone now, mislaid in a history that deviated from the academic path that Arthur had planned as a wide-eyed undergraduate. Now that image of Cobb is buried in the briar patch of… well. Crime is a strong word for what they do. There isn’t any law that applies to them right now – they dance the fine line between light and dark, where technology and magic outstrip the ability of the written word to keep pace. 

But Arthur, in his heart where he knows what consent means, knows how important it is, knows that what they are doing is wrong. It makes him feel… well. Awkward. Dirty. Makes him feel things he would rather _not_ feel. 

“Just tell me,” he says, tired, grubby, defeated, and he looks away so that he doesn’t have to see Cobb’s triumphant smirk. 

“I need you to optimise a mark for me,” he says, and Arthur does his best to repress a shudder. 

“Tempt someone?” he asks and concentrates as hard as he can on folding his blindfold, tucking it back into the drawer. “If that’s what you’re asking, Dom, say so.” 

“Crude.” Cobb sniffs, but he doesn’t sound like he’s disagreeing so Arthur pulls out his notebook and flicks to a clean page.

“So.” He picks up a pen and swings himself on his chair so he’s finally looking at Cobb again. “You want me to do this, you’re gonna need to be specific.” He waits until he’s sure he has Cobb’s attention and then uncaps his pen. “Who is the mark? What do you want me to tempt them to do?”

“Does it matter?” Cobb asks, his mouth twisted into the slightest moue of disgust and it takes everything Arthur has to repress his sigh. 

“Of course it fucking does.” He carefully caps the pen again and puts it gently onto the desk, because Cobb is not worth ruining a decent fountain pen over. “Am I tempting them into doing something they want to do? Sleeping with someone who they’ve been lusting after for years? Giving in to their heart’s desire? Or am I making them do something they’ve never even considered before?”

Cobb’s face is carefully blank and it’s that, more than anything else, that winds Arthur up. 

“What?” He pushes himself off the chair, stalks up into Cobb’s space, until he can feel the heat of Cobb’s body through the flimsy covering of his clothes. It leaves him feel cold, like he’s suffering from a fever; like he’s ill without knowing. “You don’t see the difference? You don’t get why I might need to know? You…”

“Yes.” Cobb pushes himself back, his displeasure clear. “I understand, Arthur. I’m not stupid.” 

It’s too easy and opening and Arthur turns away, far tireder than he was a second before. 

“And that means you’re going to give me a clear answer?” 

Cobb shrugs. “I want them to walk away from their obligations,” he says and Arthur nods, small and tight, because _finally_ , they are getting somewhere. 

“Who?” he asks, because that is nearly as important as the _what_ here, and his stomach clenches at the look on Cobb’s face, at the glimpse he gets before Cobb bites his lip and turns away. 

Unfortunately, though, this is the one thing that Cobb _has_ to tell him. There’s no way Arthur – good as he is – can tempt a mark without knowing _something_ about who he is. 

“Who?” Arthur asks again, and Cobb takes a deep breath as he turns around.

“Robert Fischer,” he says, and Arthur feels the bottom drop out of his world, because there’s no way he’s getting out of this alive. 

“Robert Fischer,” Arthur repeats, his voice completely deadpan and Cobb shrugs again, like he’s not just fucked Arthur over in every conceivable way.

It’s not like the idea doesn’t have some attraction to Arthur. He’s good at what he does – maybe the best – and he’s imagined what it might be like to work with the movers and shakers of this world. Of course he has. What sort of technomancer would he be if he hadn’t imagined working on politicians, CEOs, celebrities? 

As it is, Arthur’s heard of Fischer – he’s heard of Fischer and his father and his board – he’s even thought, in passing, how he might approach a job like this. But now he’s been asked, he’s almost as horrified as he is intrigued. 

Beyond that though, he’s good enough at his job that he knows the context of the request. 

Fischer-Morrow is the biggest energy firm around these days – and in a society that relies in every way on the boundary between technology and magic to dictate what is possible, energy is king. Without the power made by these companies there is no internet, no shared consciousness, no dark sprites living in the wires, waiting for your commands… no technomancy. 

In fact the only significant competitor to Fischer-Morrow is the Saito corporation – which in and of itself isn’t a problem…. except the eponymous owner of the corporation just happens to be the sorcerer who has unpleasantly close ties to Cobb these days.

It’s something Arthur’s tried to ignore. Because, who wants to admit that their mentor (and maybe, these days, their oldest friend) is in league with one of the most powerful and shadowy sorcerers in the world after all. 

Arthur certainly doesn’t, and he turns away from Cobb, uncertain that he can school his expression into the impassivity it needs. 

“You want me to get Robert Fischer to walk away from his obligations?” he asks as he reaches for a notebook – less to record what is going to be said, and more because he needs something, some semblance of normality, to hold onto right now. Something to tether him to himself, to the fact he’s good at his job, that he’s a functioning adult with tools and skills and power, and not just someone cut loose in a tide of madness and lost meaning. “You want me to get the heir apparent of the biggest energy conglomerate this world has ever seen to turn his back on his family and his company and… What, exactly?” He glares at Cobb, daring him to say anything. “Take up bunny farming? Open a cupcake concession? Start working as a fucking barista?” He feels the pen crack in his grip and forces himself with considerable effort to relax his fingers. “What do you expect from me, Dom?” 

“Nothing,” Cobb says, his face tight. “I don’t care. Just get him to walk away. Get him to leave the company.” 

“Oh,” Arthur says, swinging to look at Cobb. “Is that all?” He slams the book shut. “Do you know how hard it is to get someone to turn their back on a lifetime of expectations and belief? That almost the only way you can do it is to present a viable alternative path to them? Do you remember any of that at all?” 

“Of course I do.” Cobb glares at him, looking almost hurt. 

“Yeah, right.” Arthur looks away, sickened. “You _know_ all this and _that’s_ why you’re coming to me with half an idea and a fucking stupid outcome, because you _know_ and not because you were stupid enough to get yourself tied up in the middle of…”

“That’s enough.” Cobb’s voice is final, like he’s said the last word here. 

“Really?” There’s an unsettling curl that might be Arthur’s conscience, but he doesn’t seem to have control of his mouth. “ _That’s_ enough?” He looks at Cobb in disgust. “What would Mal say, Dom? What would your children say? Isn’t it bad enough that you’ve chosen him over them? That you’ve left them beh…”

“Shut up,” Cobb snaps. “Just shut up. You stand there, high and mighty and you think you get to judge me? Why? Because you knew me before? Because you knew my family? Because I let you get close enough to them to pretend you had a life of your own?” He takes a shuddering breath in. “You know nothing. You have no idea of what I’ve been through, and you presume to judge me because I’m doing what I can to try to help my family?”

He turns away. “You know nothing, Arthur. You know nothing now and if you’re really fucking lucky you’ll never know anything.”

“And yet I’m still here,” Arthur says, the words small and hurt and defiant. “I’m still here for you.”

He can hear Cobb’s breath, slower now, but still harsh in the quiet of the room, still audible over the hum of technology. 

“You are,” Cobb says at last. “Does that mean you’ll do what I asked?”

“Okay,.” The word is grudging, but Arthur has no choice, not really – not if he wants Cobb to keep on living. “Fine.”

“Good,” Cobb says, and they both pretend they can’t hear the relief flooding his tone. 

—

It’s easier said than done though. 

Arthur is one of the best there is. It’s why he was the one they called when they needed to extract information from the Venezuelan ambassador about the incident with Canada, when they had scant hours to succeed and couldn’t leave a memory behind, much less a mark on her. 

It’s probably why Cobb brought him with him when Mal jumped and Cobb lost his life; why Cobb has kept Arthur with him through this long, dreary trudge through the world; why even now, when Arthur can almost see the indentations of Saito’s claws in Cobb’s flesh, he still wants Arthur at his side. 

Because Arthur can spin technology so bright and vivid that you’d mistake it for reality if you didn’t know better, can spin stories so captivating that you can’t help but follow where he leads. 

Arthur is the best, and Cobb knows it, and now… well. Now Cobb needs Arthur more than ever. 

There are days when Arthur wishes he didn’t, when Arthur wishes he could just walk away and leave this whole damn mess, Cobb included, behind him. Maybe Cobb most of all, because every time he looks at Cobb, every single time Cobb speaks to him there is a terrible, wonderful fraction of a second where Arthur _doesn’t remember_. When all he sees, all he hears is the man who used to be his friend and his mentor, the man who led Arthur through his first steps in technomancy, who challenged and inspired Arthur to go further, reach higher, try more. The man who introduced Arthur to his laughing, wild-eyed girlfriend, and who asked Arthur to stand next to him at the altar when she became his wife. The man who poured wine for Arthur at a hundred dinners, shared his books and thoughts into the small hours of the night – who handed his daughter into Arthur’s arms minutes after she was born so that he could kiss his wife. 

To see that man – the one who Arthur used to love – in the face of this stranger is almost more than he can bear. But the human heart, Arthur has discovered, keeps beating, keeps insisting on its own way, long after it has shattered into fractured, broken shards.

So, he stays. Stays, and counts the days, and plans what he’ll do when he’s finally free. A beach, he thinks. Sunshine and open air and a ridiculously patterned Hawaiian shirt and a drink. A big drink, served in a hollowed out pineapple, with a tiny, neon-pink paper umbrella in it, just in case it rains. 

Until then, Arthur has his job and his duty and glimpses of a past he is increasingly slow to recognise to sustain him. He hates every second of it. 

_Why can’t Cobb just do this himself?_ he thinks, his eyes already covered, but his fingers unmoving on the keyboard, unable to keep the bitterness from his thoughts. But it’s a futile thought, and he knows it. 

Cobb can’t do this anymore. Cobb can’t do _anything_ any more. 

It had taken months after her death for him to notice – fleeing like a fugitive from continent to continent, country to country did not leave much time for observation, much less for introspection – but Cobb couldn’t hide it forever. He couldn’t touch technology at all – can barely turn on a light these days – because when he does… Well. 

Arthur remembers Mal, remembers how filthy her laugh was, how bright her eyes. There was a curve to her wrist that was more elegant than anything he had seen on any other woman. The skin of her neck at her hairline when she stood on tiptoe to embrace him goodbye smelt spicy-sweet somehow, a perfume that was one part art, one part her. She was quick to anger and laugh, equally clever and unpredictable, and she danced like a thought given form. 

She wasn’t the dead-eyed _thing_ that springs to the surface of the web whenever Cobb gets too close to technology. She wasn’t destructive, chaotic, and deadly. She didn’t tear down constructs and pathways for sport, laughing and glorying in the waste that lay behind her. 

She did none of those things, so Arthur knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that the thing that haunts Cobb isn’t Mal. It is, Arthur suspects, a part of Cobb himself, something he gives her shape because it’s easier to blame everyone around him than to accept responsibility for what he’s doing to his life. 

So, Cobb hides from technology, and Arthur acts as his agent instead, using the tricks Cobb taught him back when things were pure to play games that only Cobb knows the purpose of. 

None of which makes what Arthur is doing now any easier. 

He’s blindfolded, past the point where the vision of his eyes is any use. His fingers are on the keyboard though, and there’s a whole world of information, glimmering lights of individuals and nets of power coded into the keystrokes that connect him to the world. 

It’s more than vision, more than knowledge or experience. It’s reality – the world laid bare, and in the language of its creating, Arthur can see the fault lines, can see where he can affect change. 

From this point he can find anything, anyone, real or imagined. Any piece of information, knowledge, power that he’s searching for is available for him if he looks in the right place, calls in the right language and the right words, if he searches hard enough. 

Until now. 

Fischer is elusive. Only the faintest trace of him hangs in the space between the wires, slipping away when Arthur gets too close. 

All the approaches he tries, every avenue he explores slide clean away, repelled like he’s a magnet faced with the same pole. It’s frustrating – maddening – and the harder he hurls himself at the problem, the faster and sharper the reaction is. And yet… Arthur cannot stop himself. He whirls himself in a frenzy of electrons, trying every way, every method he can think of until he’s exhausted and lies, beaten and close to broken, in the darkest corner of nowhere he can find. 

It feels like the end of all things, and here, where hope is only the faintest memory, doesn’t feel like a bad place to die. It’s certainly the cleanest way out of the mess he’s found himself in, for sure.

Which is when he becomes aware of… something. Of the cool weight of observation and judgement. Of an intelligence that is not his in this place which is beyond anyone else. 

“For a Yank,” comes the thought, “you really do a good line in melodrama.” 

It startles Arthur, pulls his eyes open like a novice on their first run, and he finds himself sitting in the lab again, the too-bright light straining through the edges of his blindfold. 

—

 _It was my imagination_ he thinks later, when he’s had coffee and something sweet in an anonymous cafe down the street. _It wasn’t real_. 

The alternative is unthinkable. That someone or something has penetrated his defences and has managed to get close enough to speak to him without Arthur noticing. 

He puts down his cup, stands up, determined to return, to prove this was some sort of aberration or illusion, nothing real, nothing to worry about. 

It’s the first time in days that he’s entered the web in search of something that isn’t Fischer and for a second he finds himself sniffing the air in search of his regular prey. And there’s almost a hint, at the edge of knowledge, faint and familiar, and he almost, _almost_ follows it. 

“Like Don Quixote,” the thought comes. “Tilting after windmills.” There’s the sense of presence and consideration. “Tell me, do you always spend your talent on such pointless quests?” 

“It’s not pointless,” Arthur says, stung into response without caring much what he’s speaking to right now. “I can _always_ find the information I need.”

“Ah.” The sense of presence gets closer, until it seems to be right behind Arthur and he shivers and has to fight not to turn. “But you’re playing with the big boys now, aren’t you, pet? Robert Fischer? He’s a different league.”

“To what?” Arthur struggles to keep his voice calm, to suppress the traitorous flutter to his tone. “How do you know what I usually work with?” 

There is a laugh, more disquieting than humorous. “Maybe you do normally play the big leagues. Maybe you’re just slumming it now. Maybe I’ve just never seen you before because of… happenstance. Chance.” The tone is considering. “Do you think that could be it?”

“Could be,” Arthur says, swallowing around his suddenly dry throat. 

“Mmmmm.” The noise is skeptical, interested, and Arthur feels an intense sense of scrutiny. “You wouldn’t be lying to me now, would you?” Arthur shakes his head and the thing laughs again. “You humans, you never fail to amuse me.”

“You’re not human then?” Arthur asks, even if he has already guessed that much at least – guessed and tried to ignore the implications of this knowledge. 

“Not even slightly,” the voice says, a hard edge of pride to the words that leaves Arthur feeling cold, unsettled. 

He knows the sort of things that live in the wires; has met some of them, has heard of more (and worse) through hints and stories and legends.

And everyone has a story. Stories about lines of code that lead you, like will o’ the wisps, into mazes that defy knowledge or escape. Of viruses that pollute everything they touch, and turn you into something like them – something contagious and destructive. Tales of dead ends and lost ideas, abandoned by their creators and living in the spare lines of language that constitute the web. There are even stories told (when the likes of Arthur’s colleagues get together and swap good scotch and bad horror stories in the small hours of the morning) of shapeshifters – things that move between language and form, chaotic, untameable and wild. Extracting a cost from everything and everyone they touch. 

The thought that he’s talking to something like that makes him shiver. He can’t tell if it’s fear or excitement that’s coiling in his heart, but even though experience and sense dictates he should go running in the other direction, he doesn’t. 

“You’re linked to Fischer,” he says, doing his best to keep the question from his tone, trying to act like he has some semblance of power here. 

“Not hardly.” The words are warm and amused, and Arthur doesn’t believe them in the slightest. 

“Yeah?” He raises an eyebrow, doesn’t try to hide his disbelief. “It seems like you are to me.”

“Which just shows how little you understand,” the voice says, clipped and arch, and there is the sudden sensation of departure. 

Arthur waits for long minutes before he moves on, but nothing else is said, and he thinks – feels – that he is alone. 

He moves on, tries to put the voice and the words out of his mind, but he doesn’t succeed and it seems to him that there’s a watchful quality to the space around him now, wherever he goes, that wasn’t there before. 

—

The voice doesn’t return in the days that follow, and Arthur tries to tell himself that he’s not disappointed. 

He’s spending longer and longer immersed in the dark-quiet world of the web, searching without luck for a way to approach Fischer, while in the waking world Cobb’s sighs and grumbles at Arthur’s lack of progress get steadily louder. 

“We’re working to a schedule here,” he snaps as he leaves one evening, and Arthur carefully waits until Cobb’s left the building and closed the door behind him before he rests his head on the desk and regrets all his life choices, individually and collectively. 

With hindsight, he should have been expecting Saito’s appearance, but hindsight is a very exact science and Arthur always fancied he was better at the applied mechanics of things. 

As it is, he doesn’t suspect anything until he pulls off his blindfold, tired and frustrated from another fruitless exercise that yielded nothing new about Fischer and no sign of that elusive voice, and scrubs his hand over his eyes, wondering idly if he can forestall the headache he can feel starting to build. 

“You are failing.” 

The voice is unfamiliar and Arthur turns so sharply towards it that he nearly falls off his chair. There’s a moment of uncertainty, of tenuous balance where he can nearly see how he’ll look when he hits the floor, can see the spread of blood as his head impacts, and then there’s a hand on his shoulder, steadying him in an implacable grip, holding him firm until the danger has passed and Arthur is stable again.

“I’m sorry,” Arthur says, pulling away and standing up. “But you are?”

He doesn’t need to ask though, not really, and the smile on Saito’s face suggests as much.

“Foolish,” he says, and Arthur is forced to agree he has a point. Even if he didn’t recognise Saito from the publicity shots and the press clippings, there is no other sorcerer who would dare to enter the office – not when Cobb’s allegiances these days are widely known. 

Arthur’s not used to feeling flustered like this. He busies himself clearing the papers from his desk, wondering how much Saito has seen already while he was in his trance, wishing that Cobb had given him some warning. 

Saito resumes his seat and watches, as if Arthur is some new and possibly interesting life form that he’s wondering what to do with. It’s disquieting and Arthur, who can feel himself bristling, bites his lip to stop himself from saying something unwise. 

He’s saved by Cobb, who bustles into the room, too little and too late as per usual. 

“I got you a coffee,” he says, handing Saito a cup before turning to Arthur and pushing a cup towards him. He’s trying to convey something with his eyes, but Arthur is beyond being interested right now. 

“I can’t stay.” He puts his notebook into the breast pocket of his suit and turns his face so he can shoot Cobb a look that promises retribution. “I have to go and meet a lead.”

“Ah,” Saito says. “You mean Nash.” He looks down, removes a speck of dust from his suit. “I doubt you’ll find the information he has to be of much use, but by all means, honour your engagement.” 

“Yes,” Arthur says, unable to hide his shock. “I will.”

It does nothing for his mood that Saito is right. The information that Nash has isn’t even worth the cost of the drink Arthur has to buy him, but at least it gives him time to process what’s happening, to try and come up with some sense of how he should deal with Saito. 

At least he has until tomorrow to work that out, he thinks as he stumbles back to the lab, hoping for another couple of hours of uninterrupted trance work. 

Except the light is on, and when he walks into the stairwell he can hear voices drifting from the body of the lab. 

“I told you not to come,” Cobb says, the passion in his voice only constrained by the loud whisper he’s speaking in. 

Arthur hears Saito snort. “You’re in no position to tell me anything, Mr Cobb,” he says, and Arthur silently agrees. 

Cobb obviously doesn’t though. “Advise you then,” he says, defensiveness bristling from every word.

Saito pauses before he answers, and when he does, his words are measured, dangerous. “You think you’re in any position to do anything?”

There’s the scuff of movement as Cobb seems to stand up. “Arthur needs time to work,” he says. “I’ve never known him miss a mark. I’ve never known him to fail.”

“His capabilities are well known to me,” Saito says, and then laughs at the noise Cobb makes. “Why? You think I would allow you free reign to choose your own associates on a matter this delicate?”

“It’s your investment.” Cobb’s voice is carefully blank. “You’re entitled to do as you wish.”

“It’s my investment,” Saito repeats. “And I expect results.”

“You knew this was a complex job before…”

“And yet there’s been no progress.” Saito’s voice is emotionless, but that more than anything makes Arthur shiver. “None at all. I expected better of you, Mr Cobb.”

Arthur hears Cobb’s sharp inhalation. “Arthur will…” he starts, but Saito makes a disbelieving noise. 

“You have until the end of the week,” he says. “Or I will take action.”

“Please,” Cobb says, but there is the sharp strike of footsteps on the concrete floor and the click of the door as it opens.

“Arthur”, Saito says, apparently unsurprised by his presence, and pushes past him, out into the night. 

—

 

Cobb is in a foul mood when Arthur gets into the room. 

“Well?” he snaps. “You’ve got a better fucking lead on where to start?”

“Or something,” Arthur replies, trying to tune him out, already considering what approach he’s going to try this time and wondering if the mysterious voice is going to appear. 

“You’d better.” Cobb picks up a pencil sharper from Arthur’s desk, examines it, puts it back down. “You’re losing your edge.”

“Excuse me?” Arthur asks, horrified shock shattering his carefully cultivated nonchalance. “What do you mean by that?”

“I mean you’ve had it too easy for too long. You’re getting soft.”

It’s unfair – and more than that, it’s cruel, and even after everything else, Arthur didn’t expect this of Cobb. 

“I’ve followed you,” he says. “I’ve done everything you asked. Whenever you couldn’t…”

“And when in all that time have you pushed yourself?” Cobb asks, his face impassive enough to be cruel. “No. Maybe I was wrong to give this to you.” He puts his hand on Arthur’s shoulder. “Maybe this needs someone new, someone with a fresh eye.”

The words sting worse than anything else Cobb could have said. 

“I can do this,” Arthur says, and Cobb’s grip tightens painfully on his shoulder. 

“Then do it,” he says, “and do it fucking soon.”

He pushes Arthur away and leaves and Arthur slumps to his chair, bone deep weary – sick in a way he’s never felt before. 

He still opens his laptop, though, slides on his blindfold. Cobb might be goading him, but Arthur does not fail. Anyway, if nothing else, the voice might be there. 

—

He makes progress, but it’s not enough, not nearly enough to satisfy him. Not nearly enough to satisfy Cobb or Saito either.

Saito watches everything, his heavy-lidded eyes missing nothing that happens as Arthur throws himself at the problem in every way he can think of, as Cobb snaps and snarls and taunts Arthur in ways that cut to the quick, leaving all Arthur’s nerves exposed for Cobb to play on.

It doesn’t help that the feeling of exhaustion only gets worse, develops into a fog that seems almost tangible, that clouds Arthur’s thoughts and makes movement weighted down, clumsy. 

Arthur would bet that Saito knows that as well. 

He’d resent it, except Saito’s presence feels like the only thing that is keeping Cobb’s temper in check, the only thing that protects Arthur from Cobb’s cruelest words. 

“I expect better,” Cobb hisses at Arthur, his fingers digging bruises into the skin of Arthur’s wrist, and Arthur’s headache spikes so badly he has to close his eyes against the pain. 

“I’m doing my best,” Arthur says and Cobb snorts. 

“Are you?” he asks. “Or are you finding ways to stall?”

“Why would I do that?” Arthur asks, offended, and Cobb snorts. 

“You tell me,” he says. “But if I was doing it…”

“Why aren’t you doing it?” Saito’s voice comes as a shock and Arthur takes advantage of Cobb turning slightly to pull free of his grip. “I’ve heard a lot said about your abilities, Mr Cobb, but I have yet to see anything more from you than ineffective management techniques.”

He looks at Arthur pointedly, and Cobb’s cheeks flush, his expression somewhere between anger and shame.

“You know I can’t,” he says. “I explained.”

“You _say_ you can’t – but I haven’t seen any evidence of it.” Santo raises an eyebrow. “You could be lying to me.” 

“I’m not.” Cobb’s voice is close to a snarl, and Arthur backs away. “If you saw…”

“So?” Saito walks across the lab and seats himself, lounging in his chair with an elegant arrogance that Arthur can’t help but envy. “Show me.”

—

To say Arthur is not expecting this to go well is overstating the case. In the event it is much, _much_ worse.

Arthur is already tapped into the net, eyes dark but all the electric possibilities lit like stars under his fingers. Even so, he keeps a careful distance from Cobb, watchful and wary and not sure why Cobb has agreed to do this. 

Maybe he’s not sure himself, maybe he hopes that this time will be different, and whatever problems he’s had will have magically vanished. 

They haven’t, although there are a few precarious seconds where it seems they might have, where Cobb breathes in the light of the net and it doesn’t darken or tarnish. 

Except then there’s a tremor, something that Arthur feels more than sees or hears. It starts out so faint that he could almost be imagining but it only takes a few fleeting seconds until it’s built in intensity and is so strong, so painful that Arthur feels, even at the distance he is, that he might shake apart from it. 

And Cobb is at its epicentre – _is_ the fault that has caused it – and he doesn’t stand a chance. He manages to hold his position for a few moments, but even from here Arthur can see the effort that costs him and it doesn’t take long before he just can’t anymore and the structure of the net fractures around him. 

In those last awful seconds, the fragments of language and thought start to take on a shape, familiar and female and Arthur can’t watch any more. 

Cobb drops out of the net, and Arthur knows that back in the harsh light of the lab he will be pushing himself away from the laptop Saito had provided for the experiment, getting as much distance as he can between himself and the broken world he’s left behind him. 

Arthur doesn’t follow him, though. He stays where he is, unwilling to go closer and unable to move away. He’s not seen what happens from this close before. He’s seen the aftermath, of course, and been in the lab when it happened, but this is something of a first. 

He expects to see the language of the landscape start to heal itself, to knit together to cover the fractures – but it doesn’t. It stays broken, remains sharp and jagged on the horizon – the lights of the web darkening and blackening as he watches until the whole area looks like it’s been strip-mined, like everything of any value has been pulled from it with no thought or care given about what is left behind. 

Arthur shivers. 

“I completely agree,” says a voice behind him. “Ghastly, isn’t it?” 

“Yeah.” Arthur does his best to keep the excitement from his voice, but then there’s the pressure of a hand on his shoulder. “Didn’t think I’d ever see anything like this.” 

The voice sniffs. “And yet you’re working with him.” 

His initial response is to deny it, but that would be a lie and in the face of the destruction facing them, Arthur just _can’t_. 

“He wasn’t always like that,” he says, and the grip on his shoulder tightens, warming the skin under it, easing the pain that’s lurked there since Cobb touched him days ago. “If you’d known him…”

“I don’t think any amount of familiarity would excuse what he’s doing.” 

“He doesn’t mean to,” Arthur says, not sure why he feels like he needs to defend Cobb, only knowing he does. “It’s not like he chooses this.”

“Really?” The voice is right behind him now, close enough that Arthur can feel the hairs stir on the back of his neck. “Are you sure about that?” 

“I…” _Don’t know_ Arthur wants to say, but he can’t admit that out loud. Not yet. “Need to get back to the lab. He’ll need me.” 

He thinks the voice will argue with him, but it doesn’t. Instead there is the sensation of closeness, the flicker of feeling as something brushes the back of his neck, just above the collar of his shirt, and then Arthur is alone. 

He gives himself a second, just to catch his breath, and then shrugs himself awake, aware of the raised voices coming from just outside the lab even before he’s had the chance to pull off his blindfold. 

“You have to give me a chance…” Cobb says, an edge of desperation to his voice and Saito laughs.

“I don’t have to do anything,” he says. “And if you can’t do this job then I will find someone else who can and will reallocate my resources accordingly.”

“No.” Cobb reaches out and puts his hand on Saito’s arm. “You can’t. My children…”

“Will have a better chance at life without you,” Saito says, shaking Cobb’s hand free, a look of distaste on his face, and Arthur stands up, stumbles forward. 

“I can do this,” he says, and they both swing around to look at him, surprised like they’d forgotten he was there. “I swear, I’ll have access to Fischer by the end of the week.”

He swallows then, fighting to be calm in the face of Saito’s regard, because his personal feelings don’t matter right now – what matters is that he helps Cobb, and more importantly Cobb’s children, escape whatever coil he’s gotten them into. 

It seems to take hours, but eventually Saito nods. 

“The timing seems remarkably convenient,” he says, “but I have no reason to doubt _your_ honesty at least. You may have your week.” He switches his gaze back to Cobb. “But that is all you have. You have presumed too far on my good will, Mr Cobb, and you would do well to remember which assets I hold.”

He straightens the arm of his jacket, removing the last wrinkled reminders of Cobb’s grip, and nods to Arthur before he turns to leave. 

“Can you do it?” Cobb asks into the silence after he goes. “Can you find Fischer?”

He looks almost manic, and Arthur can’t tell if his expression is hope or fear. Whatever it is, it’s desperate and Arthur shrugs. 

“Don’t have much choice,” he says. “Do I?” 

Cobb looks at him, taking an almost stumbling step forwards and brushing the tips of his fingers against Arthur’s jaw.

“Thank you,” he says, and Arthur nods, trying not to squirm away from his touch and the lingering cold that spreads from it. 

__

The cold lasts, even after Cobb leaves and Arthur slinks back to his laptop, exhausted but knowing he won’t be able to sleep even if he goes back to his hotel. 

This is on him. It doesn’t matter what threats Saito used, nor what obligations Cobb has incurred, it was Arthur’s choice to do this, and he feels the weight of the promise like a rope around him, tethering him to something even if he has no idea if that is safety or a weight that will pull him to his doom.

All he can do now is his best, and he opens his laptop and slips on his blindfold with the ease of long practice, letting his fear and distraction flow away as he plugs himself into the landscape of language and light and information again. 

The scars are still there, but then so is the voice. 

“It’s not healing.”

It’s an understatement – the scar looks like a late stage tumour and Arthur can’t contain his bark of utterly inappropriate laughter. 

“No shit,” he says. “Got any other gems of insight?”

“It’s not the worst thing he’s been doing,” the voice says. “You should see how you look from here.”

It startles Arthur into turning and he looks, for the first time, at the shimmering array of lights that are stacked in a vaguely human shape behind him. 

“What do you mean?” he asks, squinting his eyes, trying to make out the features that flicker in the light. “How do I look?”

“Tired,” the thing says, but its edges are solidifying, the glow dimming as Arthur watches. “Like something’s been taking bites from you.”

“That’s shit.” Arthur glares at it, because it doesn’t matter that it’s looking more human, he’s not willing to listen to this, to believe the implications of what he’s saying. “He wouldn’t do that.” 

“As you say.” The thing has solidified enough to see now, into the solid lines of a man – well-built and clever, the sort of person that Arthur would try to catch the eye of in a bar. It looks right back at Arthur, assessing. “So, you want to do something fun?”

“What?” Arthur blinks at him, bewildered. “You want to do _what_?”

“Something fun.” The thing blinks at Arthur, considering. “We have the whole damn web at our disposal, darling. Don’t you want to play?”

It’s the first time in years that Arthur’s even considered it, but as the thing says the words Arthur looks at the suppurating space in front of them and feels the tug of temptation.

“I should work,” he says. “Fischer…” 

“Will be there tomorrow.” The thing grins at him. “We should live today for now.” 

Everything in Arthur, every shred of his past and every one of his values scream at him, but the thing smiles, and its lips are soft and tempting and Arthur has been working for a very long time.

“Sure,” he says. “Why not?”  
__

 

There are miles and hours and years of the web, and they can be a playground if you want them to be. 

There’s a joy in the freedom of this that can’t be replicated, a joy in language and numbers and lights that flash in a binary pattern that adds up to something greater than the sum of its parts. 

Arthur hasn’t felt this free since he was a student, hasn’t felt this joy and wild excitement in someone else’s company maybe ever.

“What are you?” he asks, but the thing twirls away.

“Does it matter?” he asks, quirking his head to the side, and Arthur, unsure how much he believes it, shakes his head. 

The thing looks at him like he understands what’s running through Arthur’s mind, then he leans close and brushes his lips against Arthur’s cheek.

“I’m Eames,” he says, and he grabs hold of Arthur’s hand, pulls him onwards and upwards into the wires and Arthur, laughing, follows. 

__

Saito is there when Arthur wakes up, lounging in a low chair with careful poise and watching as Arthur pushes off his blindfold.

They look at each other, Saito with a considering expression and Arthur trying to shake off the giddiness that’s come with the relaxation and rest of the last few hours. 

“The voices in the wires,” Saito says at last, “they’re tempting. They know what to offer and they know how to press you.” He raises an eyebrow. “You think, maybe, that I don’t understand, but I assure you that I do.” He stands up and straightens his cuffs. “I advise you to listen, Arthur, and to beware.” 

He walks to the door and pauses with his hand on the frame. “There are times when it is very difficult to know who to trust.”

__

 

Arthur weighs the warning in his mind. Sorcerers don’t use words lightly, and Saito’s puzzle him, even now. 

What was he warning Arthur about? And why? He owes Arthur nothing, despite the kindness he’s seemed to show. _Never trust sorcerers_ he thinks and does his best to concentrate on work instead. 

But when he tries to lose himself in his research, Cobb’s eyes are a steady, unpleasant weight on the back of his neck and his laptop is tempting, an escape and a lure all at once. 

He knows he should keep away from Eames, give himself time to think clearly, work out if Eames is using him and what he’s using him for, but the tension in the lab is too great – too many bitten back words and heavy pointed silences and Arthur barely makes it past lunch before he reaches for his blindfold and, ignoring Saito’s knowing smile, takes his first free breath of the day as he sets his fingers to the keyboard. 

But even here, in the space of technology, there isn’t an escape from the tension.

Eames is waiting for him, his expression uncharacteristically serious and earnest, and Arthur feels his heart clench in his chest. 

“Hey.” He nudges Eames’s foot with his toe. “Fancy seeing you here.”

For a second Eames grins, his eyes hungry and familiar, then the expression falls off his face and he takes a step backwards, away from Arthur. 

“You were looking for Fischer,” he says. “I think I’ve worked out how you can get to him.”

It’s a maze, he explains as he leads them across the dreamscape, around and through the distortions and soft places that have repelled Arthur before. He thinks he can see glimpses of Fischer now, but instead of approaching them directly, Eames skirts around the edges of the space, following the line to a curve that Arthur’s not sure he is capable of understanding as it moves through more dimensions than usually constitute space. “If you try to go straight to the centre, than you’ll never reach it. The trick is to not want to…”

“And still to get there?”

“Smart,” Eames says, his smile grim. “I knew you’d get it.”

He seems to get more serious as they get closer to Fischer and the mood rubs off on Arthur. He keeps his pace steady, only a step or two behind Eames, trying his best to ignore the flickering reality of the spaces they’re walking through and to remember the paths under his feet. 

He feels heavy here, like his humanity, his reality is a pressure on the space they’re passing through, and it slows his steps, makes him stumble a time or two. 

Eames, he notices, has no such problems. 

And then… they’re there, and the cessation of the protective space is so sudden, so shocking, that Arthur nearly startles himself straight back to the lab. It’s only Eames’s fingers, warm and tight, on his wrist that stops him, and he catches himself before he can say anything, and just nods his gratitude to Eames. 

Robert is alone here, Arthur can sense that as clearly as he’s ever been able to sense anything, and the space he occupies is meticulously laid out. 

Arthur’s never understood the attraction of curating your own space in the web. For him the joy of the space is the sense of connection, of the minds and intelligences you encounter as your consciousness roams. To take that space and block everyone out, to impose your will on it rather than riding the energy it provides, has always seemed to be a waste of potential. 

Nonetheless, he has to admit that the space Fischer has created is beautiful in its own way – all stark lines and carefully constructed conceits that create a space that is light, capacious, empty. 

It arrests him almost as much as it chills him, and he’s grateful for the warmth of Eames’s body next to him, shabby and imperfect and more human than Arthur has seen him before. It’s Eames that allows Arthur to stay, to keep exploring until at last they see Fischer himself, concentrating on some detail, his attention occupied enough that he doesn’t register their presence. 

They stay and watch him for as long as Arthur dares, and in that whole time Fischer’s concentration doesn’t waver once. 

“He’s focused,” Arthur says to Eames when they leave at last, and Eames shrugs.

“It’s his escape,” he says, his face set in grim lines. “The only place he actually feels safe. He’s invested in making it beautiful.” 

Arthur nods, picturing the years that Fischer must have dedicated to creating what is essentially a mind palace, trying to imagine what his waking world must be like to fuel this passion, crave this isolation. 

“Thank you,” he says when they get back to the spaces of the web that feel familiar, when he can sense the thrum of energy and information waiting to welcome him in. “You didn’t have to show me that, and I would never have found that way on my own.”

“No,” Eames says, turning to look at him. “You wouldn’t.”

“I’m grateful,” Arthur says, feeling oddly formal under the weight of Eames’s regard. “Thank you.”

Eames shakes his head, though, and steps forward so he can take hold of Arthur’s shoulders. 

“Don’t thank me,” he says. “Just… Why do you want to do this, Arthur?” His eyes are dark and curious and it’s all Arthur can do not to flinch away. “You’ve seen him now, you’ve seen what he is and what he’s becoming. Tell me, what has he done to deserve this?”

—

Eames’s words stay with him as he pulls off his blindfold and blinks against the harsh lights of the lab.

“Well?” Cobb asks, and Arthur shakes his head, frustrated. 

“I need coffee,” he says, trying to find his jacket and his wallet and anything else he might need to just be gone right now. 

“But…” Cobb looks up at him, petulant, and the last thread of Arthur’s patience snaps. 

“Leave it.” He glares at Cobb, daring him to say anything else. “I need five minutes before I have to listen to any more of your bullshit.” 

He pushes himself up, forcing himself to hold his tongue, knowing that if he says any more he will say unforgivable things. It’s only when he’s at the door of the lab that he catches Saito’s eye, notices the tiny, satisfied smile on his face. Arthur nods and leaves. 

His anger is a muddled cloud in his heart as he makes his way down the street. He’s angry at Cobb, at Eames… at himself. 

If Eames doesn’t want him to be able to approach Fischer, why would he show him how to do it? Arthur would never have figured out the maze around him – partly because he’s never seen anything like it before, but mostly because he doesn’t want to do this. But that raises the question of why Arthur _is_ doing this, and in his heart he knows that _because Cobb asked me to_ isn’t really any sort of answer. 

He loved Mal, yes. Maybe once he even loved Cobb. But those days are gone and the memories are blurred and right now – on the backstreets of Milan, in front of a rundown looking coffee shop – Arthur isn’t sure why he’s even keeping Cobb in his life, much less why he’s willing to ruin someone else’s life just because Cobb asks. 

For a second he’s tempted to keep walking – to leave his blindfold and laptop and lab and Cobb behind him and travel until they’re all just distant memories. But then he takes a breath and goes into the shop. He’s good at what he does, doesn’t know much else that he _can_ do – and more importantly he’s given his word, and when it comes down to it, keeping his word is maybe the most important thing here. 

He orders a coffee and carries it across to a table, waiting and expecting the hand on his shoulder long before the coffeeshop door even opens. 

“Are you okay?” Cobb asks, and Arthur twists, shaking off his hold. 

“Fine,” he snaps, not bothering to look up from his coffee. 

It makes Cobb sigh. “I mean, are you still okay to do the job?” he says, clearly fighting to sound more patient than he feels. 

“Is that all that’s important to you?” Arthur doesn’t try to keep the disgust from his voice and Cobb sits down opposite him, a look of concern on his face. 

“Of course not!” he says. “It’s just… You’ve seen how Saito is. You know the pressure I’m under.”

It’s an old song, one he’s sung dozens of times before, but this time Arthur doesn’t feel the familiar tug on his heartstrings. 

“So, what do you want from me?” he asks, his voice completely dispassionate. 

“Come back to the lab,” Cobb tells him. “Keep trying to reach him. Arthur…” He reaches out and takes a tight grip on Arthur’s wrist. “We have a deadline. We can’t afford to miss it.”

“Whatever,” Arthur says, but he gets up anyway, follows Cobb back to the lab despite how he’s feeling.

—

“You’ve found a way to approach him,” Saito says as Arthur takes his seat, letting his body shape itself to the familiar lines of it. 

“Yes,” he says and meets Saito’s eyes. There’s something there, some message that Arthur doesn’t have the language skills to read. 

“That’s good?” Cobb says, sounding hopeful and unsure all at once. He has a smile plastered on his face but it does nothing to hide his desperation. “So? What are we waiting for?”

Arthur pauses, his fingers still on the power button of the laptop, its screen already whirring into life. He’s not sure if he’s imagining it, but he would swear Saito gives him the tiniest nod.

“For a reason to do this,” he says, and can almost hear crackle of his bridges burning behind him. 

“What do you mean?” Cobb asks and Arthur turns to look at him.

“I want to know why I’m doing this. I want to know why you _want_ me to do this.”

Cobb gapes at him unattractively. “Because Saito…” he starts and Arthur leans forward, cutting him off. 

“I know that,” Arthur snaps. “But why did you say yes to Saito? Why did you take this job?”

“An interesting question,” Saito says, “and one that I think Arthur has a right to hear the answer for, yes?”

“I don’t have to answer that,” Cobb says. 

“And I don’t have to do this,” Arthur says, rising to leave.

“No.” Arthur barely registers Cobb moving before he shoves Arthur back into the seat, and surprise as much as the force means Arthur lets him. “Please, Arthur. Don’t ask. Just do this.”

Arthur looks up at him, and for a second he sees the shell of the man he used to know. He shakes his head. 

“Not until you tell me why,” he says and pretends he can’t hear his voice shaking. 

He thinks that Cobb won’t answer, he thinks maybe Cobb will stand there, staring at him, not the faintest glimmer of expression on his face, forever, but then Cobb drags his hand over his face, and suddenly Arthur can see just how tired he is. 

“Because it could bring Mal back,” Cobb says, and Arthur chokes on nothing.

“What?” He can’t keep the incredulity out of his voice, doesn’t try. “She’s dead.”

“Only her human form.” The light that burns is Cobb’s eyes could be read as hope if you were feeling kind. Arthur isn’t, and recognises mania when he sees it. “Her _self_ – her memories, her records, her online imprints… they’re all still out there. All I need is to put enough energy into them and they can take form again. Arthur…” He sits down, leans forward towards Arthur. “If we tempt Fischer, Saito says he’ll give me access to the energy I need. I can have her back again – _we_ can have her back again.”

“And until then?” Arthur asks. “You’ve been trying to do this on your own, haven’t you?”

Cobb nods and Arthur feels a pit of sick dread open up in his stomach. 

“That thing. The thing that ruins everything. You think that’s _her_?”

“It’s the best I can manage,” Cobb says. “You’ve seen the energy it takes. You see what it takes from me, from the web when I go in.”

“And you?” Arthur feels himself go cold. “How are you getting the energy at the moment?”

Cobb shoots him a look of naked pleading. “Don’t make me say,” he says. “Just do this. Do this and give me my wife back and we can move on.”

He reaches out as if he’s going to touch Arthur, and Arthur jerks back in a whole body recoil, remembering the dozens – hundreds – of times that’s Cobb’s touched him. He remembers the touches and then he remembers the coldness and headaches, and he feels physically sick. 

“It’s me, isn’t it? You’re taking the energy from me.”

“Arthur…” Cobb reaches out again and Arthur is suddenly, breathtakingly angry. 

“Don’t you dare,” he hisses. “Don’t you fucking dare. I’ve stuck with you – I gave up my fucking _home_ for you, and what? That wasn’t enough? You wanted my life as well?” His mouth twists in disgust, and Cobb blanches, looks away. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

There’s a moment where Arthur thinks his words have struck home, and he believes, for the most fleeting second, that Cobb might have listened to him, might have understood how despicable his actions have been, but then Cobb takes a deep breath and when he looks up his face is set with resolve. 

“I’m sorry you feel like that, Arthur,” he says, conversationally, all the tension of the last minutes gone. “I really wanted you to help with this. I really wanted to get this done without hurting you.” He smiles at Arthur, and for a moment Arthur can see the man he used to know, can almost believe his regret is real. But then Cobb stands up to casually lock the door of the lab and turns back to Arthur, his smile completely and wholly insane. “But you’re going to do this one way or another, and if you don’t do this voluntarily, well…” He looks at Arthur dispassionately and Arthur shivers. “Then I will take what I need from you.”

He’s clearly ready to do this, and Arthur feels a bubble of panic pushing at the inside of his ribs. He’s gotten old, trusting – soft. He doesn’t have a gun in reach, hadn’t expected Cobb to betray him. He wasn’t ready for this, and the magnitude of Cobb’s betrayal is almost paralysing, and for a horrible destructive moment, Arthur almost lets him. Then the laptop behind him crackles, its screen bowing and pushing as _something_ reaches out, and Cobb, startled, falters in his movement. 

It gives Arthur a split second he needs to recover himself, to break whatever spell he’s been under, and he pushes himself back, knocking the chair over as he scrambles to his feet and away from Cobb. 

“What the hell…” Cobb starts, his eyes fixed on the thing pulling itself out of the screen. “Arthur, what is this?”

“Eames!” Arthur shouts, not sure why Eames is here – not sure _how_ he can be here, but utterly and overwhelmingly glad to see him regardless. 

“Eames?” Cobb swings around, snarling. “You have a name.”

He starts snapping out commands, the basic language of code and magic, and Arthur realises that Cobb is defining Eames, limiting him by language and reality, and he cannot let that happen. 

“No.” He surges forward, punching Cobb and shoving him backwards and away, stopping the litany that was warping Eames. “You’ve taken enough from me. You’re not taking this as well.” 

He shoves Cobb again, putting everything he has into the thrust and he feels something break free, feels the full weight of his own energy for the first time in what feels like years. 

_How long has this been going on?_ he wonders. _Just how much has he taken from me?_ and then with the wild, full weight of his power, he reaches out to Eames, pours energy into him, leaving Eames to define himself, define his own shape and existence, laughing as he does it. 

“Monster,” Cobb screams, and Arthur laughs again because there’s only one monster in the room, and it sure as hell isn’t Eames. 

“My power,” he snarls at Cobb, “my choice.” And he pushes again, watching Eames coalesce in the room in front of him even as the room around him wavers and starts to get dark.

“Darling.” Eames is clear enough now that Arthur can see the concern on his face, and he wants to tell Eames not to worry, that he’s fine, that he can _do_ this, but words seem hard all of a sudden and he staggers, slipping down against the wall, his legs not able to hold him anymore. 

It might be an illusion in the growing glimmer of the room, but before he passes out he’s sure he hears Saito saying “Enough drama,” but then there’s nothing. 

—

“I am a monster,” Eames says before Arthur even opens his eyes. “Cobb was right about that.”

“Really?” The word gets stuck in Arthur’s throat and he starts coughing, choking on the dryness until Eames pulls him up and presses a glass of water to his lips. “Really?” he asks again when he can talk, and Eames nods.

“I saw what he was doing,” Eames says. “And I saw it because I was going to do the same thing.”

“Huh.” Arthur reaches for the water again, takes another sip. “Why didn’t you?”

He’s not seen Eames look awkward before, so he files the image away for future reference because Eames, human, shamefaced and scuffing the toe of his shoe, is something to see. 

“I didn’t want to,” Eames says at last. “I found that, as I got to know you, there were things I would much rather do.”

 _He’s telling the truth_ Arthur thinks, and he shrugs, drops back onto the couch he’s been propped up on. “Okay,” he says. “Fair enough. Don’t do it again.”

“What?” Eames looks baffled. “That’s not what you’re meant to say.”

“Why? What am I meant to say?”

“You’re meant to tell me to get out,” Eames says, sounding baffled. “You’re meant to tell me you never want to see me again.”

“Do you want me to say that?” Arthur asks, genuinely curious.

“What?” Eames looks horrified. “No! Of course not!” 

“Well.” Arthur does his best to smile. “I’m not going to.” 

“Hum.” Eames regards him seriously, then his face splits into a grin. “Foolish.”

“But?”

“But I like it, is that what you want to hear?”

“It’ll do,” Arthur says. “For a start.”

—

It’s not that easy of course. There’s still Cobb, still Saito to deal with, and much as Arthur wants to run away, he _can’t_. 

Saito has a team of serious faced professionals bustling about the lab when Arthur manages to get up, clearing and cleaning the place as effectively as anything Arthur’s ever seen.

“Better to leave no trace,” he says when he sees Arthur watching. 

“You’re not staying?” Arthur asks, and Saito shakes his head.

“Business waits for no man,” he says. “Not even me.”

“You surprise me,” Arthur says, deadpan, and for a second Saito smiles, small and genuine. 

He watches as one of the minions puts his laptop and blindfold into a case that’s expensive and leather and certainly not his, and hands it, bowing, to him before he says anything else.

“Is this it?” he asks and Saito looks at him, curious. 

“What else do you expect?” he asks and Arthur shrugs, not sure.

“I didn’t tempt Fischer,” he says. “I didn’t even try.”

“It’s of no consequence,” Saito says. “It would have been a useful benefit had you done it, but that wasn’t the main reason I was here.”

“What was?” Arthur asks, and is surprised at his own daring. 

“Sometimes there are things that need changing,” Saito says, his voice distant. “There are forces that need to be balanced, energies that need freeing. These things cause discord, and discord – as you have seen – disrupts the net, makes all magic more unreliable.”

“And that’s resolved now?”

“It is.” Saito looks at him for a moment, considering. “And what are you and your Eames doing next?” 

Arthur thinks about this for a second.

“I think we’ll go where the mood takes us,” he says at last. “See what the world has to offer.”

Saito nods, like he expected the answer. “My assistant has put a card in your case,” he says. “There is a job for you, should you ever choose to present it.”

Arthur bows his head. 

“I’m honoured,” he says. “But for now, I want to be free to go where the whim takes me.”

“I understand.” Saito nods at him. “Follow your heart, Arthur.”

Arthur turns to go, but he pauses at the door, his fingers on the handle. 

“Where’s Cobb?” he asks. “And what will happen to him?”

“Do you really want to know?” Saito asks, as if he would answer if Arthur pressed, but Arthur shakes his head, silent, and slips out of the lab for the last time. 

 

—

For years Arthur walked the world and the web without any real joy. Now he walks it with Eames. It’s different, he thinks. All of it. It’s wilder and realer and there’s an edge of chaotic joy to it that there never was before.

They go from country to country, job to job, bed to bed and Eames is all sly smiles and sharp comments in public, all bruising kisses and scorching touches in private. 

He’s clever – cleverer than Arthur guessed – the sort of cheerful gambler who stakes everything, months of carefully constructed plans, hours of painstaking research, on a gut feeling, but luck dogs his steps and he pulls Arthur free of every entanglement, laughing, a barely-banked wildness in his eyes. 

They escaped this job by the skin of their teeth, but they’re barely through the door of the safe house before Eames has Arthur pressed to the wall, his thigh pressed between Arthur’s legs, his fingers pressing bruises into Arthur’s biceps, his teeth on the soft skin of Arthur’s neck. 

“Yes,” he whispers, the words barely carrying to Arthur’s ear. “Give me… Let me…”

“Yes,” Arthur says, pushing back, taking everything that Eames can give him, matching it. “Yes.

—

“You’ve got what you want then?” Arthur asks after, before he’s even caught his breath. The sweat is cooling on his body, but in the warm Mombasa night, even that feels pleasant. 

“Oh, darling.” It’s a trick of the light, of the dark maybe, but Arthur can’t make out Eames’s features from here, just the sharp, white line of his smile. “I’ll never have _everything_ I want.” There’s the whisper of movement as Eames rolls away, reaching for something on the bedside table, then he’s back, the heat of his body almost burning Arthur as he presses into him. “There’ll always be something more I want,” he says and brings his hand up. It’s an apple, Arthur notices, and he idly wonders where Eames got it from.

It hangs between them, the promise of sweet, sharp juice, barely contained by skin and flesh. Arthur can smell it. 

It’s Eames who bites though, crunching into it, uninhabited and loud, letting the juice run down his chin. 

“You want to join me finding it?” he asks, and Arthur nods, mute, reaching out to cup Eames’s hand where it’s holding the apple. 

“Good,” Eames says, and – smiling like sin itself – he brings the sweet, crisp edge of the apple to Arthur’s lips. 

Arthur bites.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Wired](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11382381) by [kansouame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kansouame/pseuds/kansouame)




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